Wickedly Wonderful Wasps!

This really is the time of the year for hysterical people! The universal cry to be heard above all others, as everyone gets up and runs away with arms flailing, is undoubtedly, "WASP!!!". Prepare yourself, wasps belong to the family Vespidae and at present there are 4,000 species known to us. I would like to take this opportunity, whilst on my soapbox, to come to the aid of the lowly wasp. Wasps ARE BENEFICIAL! They feed their grubs on insects such as flies and caterpillars and make great pest controllers in your gardens. Wasps will also eat carrion and pollinate plants. They in turn feed others such as birds. There really is a point to wasps other than the one on the end of their beautiful bodies. Wasps will sting it is true but this is in defence, and unlike a bee, an individual can sting many times. Soon the frosts will be here and the wasps will all die except for the newly mated young Queens who will overwinter ready for next year. If you do get a chance to see a wasp nest up close just take a good look at its construction. Built out of chewed up wood entirely by the female workers it is truly a marvel. Inside the cells are all perfect hexagons. That alone should give you respect for the wonderful wasp!

                                                       Just look at the stunning construction!

Who's the Daddy?

The screaming has started and it is not even Halloween! The cause of many peoples fears seems to be the incredible Crane Fly Tipulidae paludosa often referred to as Daddy Longlegs. They are what we call true flies, really big ones at that, and now it is the peak time to see them. They DO NOT sting, bite or have any venom. Infact not only are they totally harmless, they are also totally hopeless! I always feel sorry for them as they are weak fliers with great long, gangly legs and are soon to all die anyway. Their larvae do not fare any better as they are known as leatherjackets and have a taste for lawns, feeding on the grass roots. The adults have amazing balancing aids called halteres which are just behind their wings. The females have a really clever pointed abdomen which is called an ovipositer and she uses this to push into the ground and lay her precious eggs in the soil. The adults emerge from August to October, but mostly in September, and are mainly nocturnal. They hardly feed at all and if they do it will only be a quick sip of nectar. They search out mates then lay their eggs into grassland. They prefer it damp and short. Then as their eggs begin their life, their parents ends. (Hope you are not so scared now but almost feeling a twinge of sadness?). Easy to catch, but handle with care as their legs can break off. Great seasonal indicators, right up there with blackberrying, ploughed fields and pumpkins!

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               Not the stuff of nightmares but a male Crane Fly attracted to our kitchen lights as evening falls.

THE show to go to!!

Getting excited – not long now to the AES Annual Exhibition and Trade Fair at Kempton Park Racecourse!!! It is held on the 1^st October (2011) and is the largest invertebrate show in the UK. www.amentsoc.org .Tickets are £4 per adult and £2 per child. Under sevens and AES Bug Club members go free. It is attended by most of the major invertebrate societies in the UK and is quite simply a truly fantastic day out. I can not recommend it enough but you need some pocket money because there are loads of books, equipment, livestock and specimens for sale. We go as a family with friends and my sons are doing two separate displays on their own invertebrate observations as AES Bug Club members. It is great for them educationally as it covers Science,  Art/Design, English and sometimes Mathematics as well as having an informal chat to the judges on the day. They do it all for their own enjoyment (£50 prize money is up for grabs which appears to be quite an incentive too)! It is open to any age within the Bug Club and can cover any invertebrate in any depth with the children's age and capabilities taken into account. First stop for us will be Graham and Janice Smith www.metamorphosis.gb.com , on their stand to see what they have on show and a quick chat. Graham is one of those rare people who can hold a massive amount of information and share it out with gusto. I could listen to him all day! They are both just so enthusiastic and knowledgeable it is very hard to actually keep it to a quick chat but it is a busy day for them and they have loads to get on with. Then its a quick nip upstairs to the live pupae stands to choose a new project to hatch out and hopefully breed. After that is in the bag it is a day of pure blissful fascination and so much to see!

Graham and Janice Smith hard at work.

Some of the many pupae for sale.

Baby boom!

Judging by the amount of nymphs produced by our Leaf, Archimandrita tesselata,, Hissing, Gromphadorhina oblongonota, and Tiger Hissing Cockroaches, Princisia vanwaerebecki, in the last few days I would say they are all very happy indeed! The nymphs are all wingless and will have to go through several moults to enable them to grow into adults. The ones that are winged when adults will only produce their wings when they have their final moult. We call each moult stage an instar and they can not breathe while they do actually moult their old exoskeleton because it passes over their spiracles, which are their breathing holes on their abdomen, and blocks them as it goes. I am always relieved when each moult is over and everyone is okay. 

Beautiful babies!

Moulted skins.

Vader, one of our male Giant Asian Mantis coming out of his old skin.

 

Boys will be boys

Great fun with a local Cubs group last evening who all were massive Deadly 60 fans and on their sleep over in a village hall. Took some Mantis with me and made sure the Giant Asians were slightly hungry. The boys put the flies in and watched them meet their maker. They were so enthralled and wanted to know all about all the 'nasties' like parasitic wasps etc. What is it about boys? We did have a truly fabulous time though and the tucker was not half bad. Got a phone call from the leader today who told me they would not settle down to sleep and were beginning to get on the adults nerves so they hatched a cunning plan to get their own back. They pretended I was on the phone and was worried because I could not find one of my Spiny Devils, Eurycantha coriacea, and had anyone seen it? He said they made out they were not unduly concerned but he did notice they slept closer together than usual!

Molly, one of our New Guinea Spiny Devils Eurycantha coriacea. A gorgeous stick insect that likes nothing better than some fresh Ivy and Bramble leaves.

AES Big Bug Hunt

We hosted a AES www.amentsoc.org ,Big Bug Hunt on the farm here yesterday. We had a couple of experts from the Oxford Natural History Museum www.oum.ox.ac.uk , and the London Natural History Museum www.nhm.ac.uk with us. At 11am we all went with equipment gratefully burrowed from Oxford Natural History Museum like a group of budding explorers setting off into the Great Amazon Basin. It was slightly cloudy and breezy but our first stop was to check pit fall traps in the beech woods and beat the trees and bushes into trays .The beating was extremely popular with the children and they were extremely enthusiastic in their efforts! Specimens collected and noted and it was time for a quick pit stop of sarnies and drinks before heading out to the grassland. Pit fall traps here yielded well too and the local grasshopper and cricket species provided plenty of excitement for young and old alike. Checking sweep nets is a very serious business and sometimes you just have to get right in there! Specimens again collected and logged, it was back into some more woods for pootering with leaf litter trays and checking out decaying logs. Back home for a much deserved BBQ and then starting the process of identification. The children were extremely good at identifying a lot of species but really loved the pinning workshop with the Violet Ground Beetles, Carabus violaceus, surplus from the pit fall traps. We had pins being put in to set the specimens with deep concentration and in deadly silence. Fantastic day with some specimens being taken back to the museums for further identification. It is exciting because we are still making new discoveries in our own back gardens and there is so much still to learn. By the way, it is often children who spot something special and many new species have been discovered by them. 

www.amentsoc.org/bug-club/

Mating Mantis

Ventress our Giant Asian Mantis female, Hierodula membranacea, is ready to mate. Vader is the chosen one. (Sorry but living with a Star Wars obsessed family who keep naming the insects after the characters, I simply could not resist that one). Mating Mantis can be a rather touch and go affair for the males in particular. We fed Ventress to almost bursting point – and be careful here because sometimes they actually will – and introduced Vader. They have a large tank with plenty of escape space. Vader approached tentatively as you would expect from someone who knows it could be a very costly experience. He did a lot of antenna waving, and I am sorry to say, but after nearly an hour of this we left them to it. When I returned after a couple of hours Vader was clasped on top of Ventress with all his body parts in tact. He stayed on her back for the entire of the next day but was no longer mating so I decided to move him back into his own tank. I think I could almost sense his relief as he scrambled onto my hand. Now we wait and Ventress is absolutely massive. I must also mention my sister-in-law sent me a card with a cartoon of two Mantis on it. The female is talking to a rather bemused looking male and is saying,' after we mate and before I eat you, I would like you to put up some shelves...' It is one of those things you have to see to appreciate but I thought it and the timing absolutely wonderful!

                                                                      *UPDATE*

 

Extremely early this morning I awoke to footsteps hammering up our stairs. It has happened, our very first Giant Asian Mantis fertile ootheca, (which is what we call the egg case), and it was still being laid so I better get up quick and come and see. Ventress was most certainly in the process of creating her ootheca attached to some wiggly Hazel sticks in her tank. Mantis ootheca are a foamy mass that surround and protect the eggs inside. It hardens in the air once made. Alot of nymphs will hopefully hatch form this ootheca and then we will be busy feeding fruit flies and separating the nymphs as they grow. Asian Mantis are avid insect feeders and do not turn down a meal of each other should the opportunity arise.

The original expanding foam!